NSSF Urges Undetectable Firearms Act Reauthorization

National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is urging Congress to reauthorize the Undetectable Firearms Act before it expires on Dec. 9. NSSF has written the chairmen and ranking members of the appropriate committees in both houses to point out that “the current law has proven effective in preventing the illegal manufacture, importation, sale or possession of undetectable firearms.”

Recent news accounts of plastic firearms being made with 3D printing technology and calls for action by anti-gun activists has resulted in some members of Congress calling for new and more extensive legislation. It is doubtful that such guns pose much of a threat to the public. As NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel,Larry Keane told Business Week any plastic firearm “would be very unreliable and very unsafe.”

There have been no cases of an illegal undetectable firearm ever being used in a crime, even as security screening technology has advanced since passage of the original law in 1988. NSSF is concerned that new proposals that go well beyond current law could hamper federally licensed firearms manufacturers from developing prototypes using advanced or emerging technologies.